Bill Tindall
The Kato-Kawai pictures, as well as Steve Elliot's pictures, show us that the clearance angle at the blade tip becomes zero very quickly as a result of the bottom of the blade wearing as it rubs across the wood. Hence, much of the time we are planing with a zero microbevel. This wear surface eventually grows sufficiently large to creat a lifting force on the blade. I don't think I am up to trying to figure out the compensating forces of a lower blade angle and this lifting force from this wear surface. However, I once made a low angle Krenov style plane with very little clearance angle and it worked fine.